Movie to be filmed in Ballston Spa

The 53-year-old filmmaker vividly recalls the humiliation he felt as a high school freshman, when a senior in rifle range class jammed the barrel of a loaded gun in his face and ordered the younger boy to kiss his shoe.

Tennyson Bardwell said he bowed down and touched his lips to the boot of the older student at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany. The other boy laughed before lowering the weapon.

“I have been bullied in my life, witnessed the brutal bullying of others and have since wished to make a film about this awful human trait,” he wrote.

The Ballston Spa man and his wife, Mary-Beth Taylor, are trying to fulfill that wish with the launch of their third full-length feature called “Bully Pulpit.” The thriller/horror movie tells the story of a secret group of high school bullies who taunt a young student and meet a deadly comeuppance.

Future audience members of “Bully Pulpit” can pledge all levels of support in return for online updates, all-day visits to the set, and for one investment of at least $10,000, an appearance in the movie.

The couple want to shoot the film at a local school, different locations around the village and in a diner on Route 50 in Malta.

“There will be one star, maybe two,” Taylor said Wednesday in an interview. Casting for the film begins within the next month, but depends on fundraising, she said.

Bardwell and Taylor have learned that modern-day artists must also be creative in marketing and fundraising. On that end, Taylor, an oil painter from Long Island, excels.

The film’s budget is $1 million to $1.2 million, she said, and they hope to raise most of it through small and medium investors. But for the first time in their careers, Bardwell and Taylor are also using the growing crowd-sourcing website Kickstarter to raise revenue. The site allows independent movie makers and other artists to raise support for their endeavors in exchange for merchandise, access and more.

“I’m looking to build a fan base,” Taylor said.

Bardwell wrote “Bully Pulpit” and is directing the movie. Taylor will produce it. They’re aiming for a PG-13 rating.

In 2002, the couple made the award-winning “Dorian Blues” on a $160,000 budget around Albany County. The film tells the story of a high school student’s struggle to tell his domineering father he is gay.

They made “The Skeptic” at the Batcheller Mansion Inn in Saratoga Springs in 2005-2006. The psychological thriller starred actors Tim Daly and Tom Arnold.

In “Bully Pulpit,” the town’s female police chief becomes obsessed with solving a murder spree. The movie’s tagline is, “There’s zero tolerance for bullying at Mill Central. You bully … you die.” Taylor says she wants to release the movie next year.